5 Brilliant Clues Hidden in the Background of Movies

Movie spoilers are one of the many things that the Internet deals in like currency -- once a film has been released, it's tough to avoid having the ending ruined for you unless you power down every electronic device in your home and live like a frontier fur trapper. However, sometimes the movie gives away its own ending (or at least crucial upcoming plot points) by dropping vague little hints early on. You just have to keep your eyes open ...

#5. Jurassic Park: A Seat Belt Malfunction Reveals That the Dinosaurs Can Reproduce

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures

Jurassic Park is a movie about dinosaurs killing people, but several things had to go wrong in order for this to happen. Sure, the security system getting shut down by Newman from Seinfeld was a big one, but before that came the news that the dinosaurs were breeding out of control, despite the fact that it should have been impossible.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal PicturesAfter all, sending kids to a single-sex school always stops them from fucking, right?

This is one of the big twists of the film, when paleontologist Dr. Sam Neill discovers that the dinosaurs are breeding despite the fact that they were genetically engineered to all be female (specifically to prevent this). It is a development that, indeed, no one saw coming, for how in the name of science could a bunch of prehistoric lizards equipped with nothing but girl parts be expected to make babies?

However, if you were paying close attention, it's a twist the movie gives away in the first 20 minutes.

The Foreshadowing:

It's played as just a throwaway joke -- as the helicopter carrying all the '90s-fashionable scientists swoops down toward Isla Nublar, Neill is told to buckle his seat belt. But then this happens:

That's right -- Neill is stuck with two buckles, rather than the tongue and buckle combination required to secure him safely to the helicopter bench. The clasp, incidentally, is also referred to as the "female" end, so Sam is technically stuck with nothing but female parts. He continues fumbling around with the mismatched seat belt while Jeff Goldblum stares him down like a guy who knows a thing or two about female parts:

Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures"Life finds a way ... to my dick."

Finally, having exhausted every possible option, Neill resorts to simply tying the two ends of the belt together to form a makeshift seat belt.

Amblin Entertainment/Universal PicturesGrant, you old sailor, you.

There you go -- he needed to create something new (a seat belt), but all he had were female ends. So, he improvised. This is exactly what ends up happening with the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. They were left with only one half of the necessary gender pairing to breed, but somehow they are able to create baby dinosaurs. They made it work.

Of course, the specific way that the dinosaurs were able to leap this biological hurdle is never adequately explained (beyond some tossed out rationalization about the geneticists using frog DNA), so we've no choice but to imagine two female dinosaurs tying their vaginas together.

#4. Fight Club: A Brief Close-Up on a Telephone Gives Away the Ending

Regency Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Fight Club is, of course, full of hints about the big twist (that Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were the split personalities of one guy who just beats the shit out of himself for no reason), and most of them are obvious after the fact. Like when Norton beats the hell out of himself in his boss' office and says that it reminds him of his first fight with Tyler Durden (Pitt) -- it seems like an offhand comment on your first viewing, but is obvious in retrospect.

Regency Entertainment/20th Century FoxWe can only imagine what masturbating reminded him of.

However, there's one bit of Brad-Pitt-is-really-a-mind-ghost foreshadowing that we're pretty sure even the most devout Fight Club viewers mining the DVD for senior yearbook quotes didn't pick up on, and that is the freaking pay phone.

The Foreshadowing:

Right after Norton's apartment explodes, he calls Tyler on a pay phone to ask if he can crash on the couch at Tyler's rancid hobo tomb. Tyler doesn't answer, so Norton hangs up. Immediately the phone starts ringing -- Tyler is on the other end, having hit *69 to redial the last number that had called him, because for some reason a man in designer clothing living in a giant decaying shack feels the need to screen his calls.

As soon as the phone starts ringing, however, we are treated to a revealing close-up:

Regency Entertainment/20th Century Fox"Schizophrenic hallucinations and local calls only."

It's tough to see, but read that line directly underneath the word "TELNEX" -- it says "No Incoming Calls Allowed." Meaning it is not physically possible for this telephone to receive incoming calls. Meaning Tyler cannot possibly have called Edward Norton back. Meaning Edward Norton is standing in a phone booth with the receiver pressed to his ear, having a detailed conversation with nobody. And of course we find out later that's exactly what he was doing.

Granted, none of this explains why a man beating the shit out of himself in a parking lot would attract a group of disenfranchised males asking if they can join him, but that would be the subject of another article.

#3. Reservoir Dogs: Mr. Orange's Secret Is Given Away Constantly

LIVE America/Miramax Films

Quentin Tarantino's first film is about some professional crooks with color-based pseudonyms (Mr. White, Mr. Blue, Mr. Pink, etc.) who team up to pull off a diamond heist, only to discover that one of them is secretly an informant for the police. None of the crooks had ever met before, and no one can make assumptions based on anyone's reputation because of the pseudonyms. So a complex game of cat-and-mouse begins as the criminals try to discover the traitor in their midst, only to have the movie abruptly reveal that it's Mr. Orange about halfway through in a hail of Michael Madsen-slaying gunfire.

LIVE America/Miramax FilmsWhat kind of trustworthy person parts his hair down the middle anyway?

However, if you're paying really close attention, you can figure out Mr. Orange's duplicity way beforehand.

The Foreshadowing:

There are a few well-known visual hints that pop up before the big reveal that Mr. Orange is the rat, like when Nice Guy Eddie is talking on the phone about how the heist turned into a cop ambush and an orange balloon floats along behind his car:

LIVE America/Miramax Films

Or when Mr. Pink and Mr. White are arguing about who the rat could be in a room full of orange, pink, and white bottles:

LIVE America/Miramax FilmsThe pink bottles are all tip jars.

However, the single greatest (and most consistently overlooked) hint comes in the very first scene of the movie, during one of Tarantino's patented 10-minute conversations that sound cool but do not seem to advance the plot in any way. After breakfast, everyone throws in a dollar to tip the waitress except for Mr. Pink, who refuses because he thinks tipping is stupid. When the boss, Joe, comes back from the bathroom and demands to know who didn't throw in for the tip, Mr. Orange immediately tattles on Mr. Pink before anyone else even has a chance to speak:

Mr. Pink has no problem admitting it, and he goes on to defend his position to Joe, but the implication is clear -- Mr. Orange simply could not wait to drop the dime on his fellow teammate.

LIVE America/Miramax Films"I don't care about upholding the law, I just really like squealing."

In fact, that opening scene (including the subsequent debate about tipping) winds up defining everyone's personality (Mr. White is a soft-hearted pushover, Mr. Pink is a cold professional). Mr. Brown's tangential lecture about how "Like a Virgin" is about a guy with a huge dick, however, remains impossible to connect to the rest of the film in any meaningful way.

LIVE America/Miramax FilmsEverybody else left hours ago. He's still just sitting there, talking.